


The Great Silent World Whittle-Off

by LooNEY_DAC



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:24:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8638624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LooNEY_DAC/pseuds/LooNEY_DAC
Summary: Reynir & Tuuri find that they share a skill. Sigrun finds a way to turn it into a competition.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts), [Kiraly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraly/gifts).



Reynir looked at the miscellany in his arms and breathed out a sigh of satisfaction. It had taken him quite a while, but he’d finally amassed enough sticks of the right size and the right type from the kindling pile that he could put his plan into action.

Though it had been weeks ago, he could still vividly remember when Tuuri had discovered his little secret...

_“You_ whittle? _” Tuuri asked, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise._

_The derisive tone of her question caught Reynir on the raw. “Of course I whittle!”_

_Her features arranged in a look that all but said ‘I don’t believe you but I’ll be polite and hide it’, Tuuri asked, “Where do you get the wood?”_

_Reynir looked down at the stick in his hands. “I scavenge bits here and there--not all sticks are the right kind of wood, you know.”_

That had been two days before they’d reached Odense. Now that they were clear of _all that_ (Reynir shuddered with the memory of it) and just waiting on the quarantine ship to pick them up, Reynir was ready to let the others in on his idea.

Sigrun loved the idea, while the rest were more or less indifferent, except Tuuri.

“You’re seriously challenging me to a whittle-off?” she asked, not bothering to hide her condescension.

Reynir nodded emphatically. “With Sigrun and Mikkel as the judges.”

At which point, Sigrun had taken over, putting her own spin on the challenge. She thought Reynir’s bits and bobs of wood totally inadequate for a true trial of whittling skill, so she and Emil went out and got what _she_ considered ‘a real challenge’.

Now, Sigrun was eagerly laying out the rules, with Mikkel calmly translating. Each whittler was given one stick--small log, really--around a meter long and five centimeters thick.

“You each have until we get picked up to whittle the best whatever-you-can-whittle from your sticks.” Sigrun smiled wolfishly. _“Go!”_

*

Of course, it wasn’t _nearly_ so smooth as Sigrun’s summation of the challenge implied. Disaster (a bad slice here, a weak spot in the wood there) struck both of the contestants, and several times over, but each proved adept at turning disaster into opportunity. So it was that after barely two weeks, the two whittlers were ready to show off what they’d wrought.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh,” Sigrun said knowingly, picking Reynir’s entry off of the table and holding it up, “I know what _these_ are!” One elbow shot out to nudge the hapless Icelander in the ribs, even as she gave him a series of knowing winks. Reynir turned red, understanding the sense even if he didn’t know the specifics.

“One would expect the various heart motifs to be a dead giveaway in that regard,” Mikkel commented dryly. Reynir turned an even deeper shade of red when the big Dane repeated himself in Icelandic.

Fortunately, Tuuri seemed completely unaware of the significance of the two wooden spoons linked together by a chain. She was, however, favorably impressed by the craftsmanship Reynir’s entry demonstrated.

Tuuri’s entry was actually several entries: she had made a series of musical instruments, all related. “An ocarina, a double flageolet, and a dvoyanka.” She threw a sidelong glance at Reynir and said, “The dvoyanka was used by Old Time shepherds to call in their flocks, in a place called ‘Bulgar-land’; the other two were kinda warm-up pieces.” All three instruments had various decorative detailing that evidenced the skill of their maker.

“Hmmmmmmmmm.” Sigrun put on her ‘I’m taking this very seriously’ face as she studied both entries. “This’ll be tougher than I’d thought. Let’s take these back to the vehicle, Big Guy.”

The two contestants looked at each other uneasily as the judges retired for further examination and private discussion.

Finally, Tuuri offered Reynir a hesitant smile. “I’m sorry I doubted your whittling skills, Reynir--your entry was great!”

Reynir turned red all over again. After a few false starts, he managed to return the compliment, though his voice was nowhere near normal.

At that moment, Emil came in. “Have they decided yet?” he asked idly. When Tuuri shook her head, he grimaced in sympathy.

Then Emil jumped at least forty centimeters when Mikkel dryly announced from behind him, “Actually, we _have_ come to a decision.”

“Welllllllll,” Sigrun hedged, “it’s a _tie_ , so it’s not really a decision.” She placed the entries back on the table for Emil to look at.

“Oh, very nice!” Emil enthused. “An ocarina, a double flageolet, _and_ a dvoyanka!” Tuuri did a double take, but Emil was looking at Reynir’s entry now. “And a very nice set of love-spoons! My father commissioned one for my mother for when he proposed, but I’ve never seen a double set like this!”

“That’s how they do ’em in Norway,” Sigrun put in with a grin. “The happy couple use ’em to eat the wedding feast.” She winked meaningfully at Reynir, who had turned red again as Mikkel translated.

“I can see how you’d have trouble choosing between them,” Emil said. “They’re all so nicely done!”

“You’re unusually effusive, Emil,” Mikkel observed.

Emil’s face hardened. “I like pretty things. Do you find that as amusing as you do... _other things_?”

“This is all very well,” Sigrun interrupted, “but the _point_ is that we decided that we _couldn’t_ decide, and that means...”

“...More whittling,” Mikkel finished for her, and produced two more equally-sized pieces of wood to hand to Reynir and Tuuri.

Sigrun smiled wolfishly and said, _“Go!”_

The two looked at each other, sighed, and began whittling anew...


End file.
